Rails on the Washington Mall

George Kaplan · **Posted:** Sun May 30, 2004 12:57 am

File this under "Railroad Archaeology."
The June 2004 issue of "National Geographic" has an instructive article (with maps and photos) on the evolution of the Washington Mall. It makes some of the earlier arguments against the construction of the WW II Memorial groundless. That's another story though.
One photo in the article clearly documents what I had known before: The Pennsylvania RR had its passenger depot and rail yard smack dab where part of the Mall is now. It cut right across it.
Meanwhile, the B&O had its depot a block or two closer to the Capitol than the existing Washington Union Station.

Alexander D. Mitchell IV · **Posted:** Sun May 30, 2004 1:51 am

> One photo in the article clearly documents
> what I had known before: The Pennsylvania RR
> had its passenger depot and rail yard smack
> dab where part of the Mall is now. It cut
> right across it.

There's a specific reason my photo book "Washington D.C. Then & Now" had a "then" photo of a PRR 4-4-0 sprawled across the Mall........ and another "then" photo showing the back approaches to the B&P depot, with the "now" photo looking out under the wing of the "Spirit of St. Louis" in the Air and Space Museum...........

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